Restaurant technology contracts are not consumer agreements. They are written by vendor legal teams to protect the vendor. The default terms, if you sign without reading, often commit you to multi-year agreements, equipment lock-in, and data terms that benefit the platform over your business. Here are the five questions that matter most before you sign anything.
1. What is the contract length and early termination cost?
Many POS and technology contracts default to 2- or 3-year terms with significant early termination fees — sometimes the full remaining contract value. Know exactly what you're committing to before you sign. If a vendor is reluctant to discuss the exit terms, treat that as meaningful information about what the relationship will look like when you need to leave.
Negotiating tip: Contract lengths are often negotiable. If a vendor won't budge on length, push for a cap on early termination fees or the ability to exit with 60 days notice after year one. Many vendors will accept this rather than lose the deal.
2. Who owns the data, and what happens to it if I leave?
You should have the right to export all of your data in a usable format — customer records, transaction history, menu data, reporting — at any time and especially when you exit. Some vendors contractually claim ownership of aggregated or anonymized versions of your data. Some make data export deliberately difficult. Ask specifically: what data can I export, in what format, and how long do I have to export it after termination?
3. What are the support terms and response time commitments?
The sales rep will tell you support is excellent. The contract will tell you what's actually guaranteed. Look for SLAs — service level agreements — that specify response times for different issue severities. A critical issue (your POS is down during service) should have a very different response time commitment than a billing question. If the contract doesn't specify SLAs, the vendor has no obligation to respond quickly to anything.
4. Are there processing fee increases or rate changes built in?
Payment processing rates are one of the most common ways vendors quietly increase what you pay over the life of a contract. Some agreements include automatic annual rate increases. Some tie rates to card network changes and pass increases through directly. Understand the processing rate structure and whether it can change without your consent during the contract term.
5. What hardware do I own, and what happens to it if I switch?
Proprietary hardware — equipment that only works with one vendor's software — is a significant switching cost that many operators don't fully account for. If you're buying Toast hardware, that equipment has no value with any other POS system. Ask whether hardware can be returned at contract end, and factor the full hardware cost into your total cost of ownership calculation — not just the monthly software fee.
One more thing: get promises in writing
Whatever the sales rep tells you about onboarding support, migration help, or special pricing — get it in writing before you sign. Verbal commitments from salespeople are unenforceable. The contract is what governs the relationship. If it's not in the contract, assume it doesn't exist.
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